Yekaterina Kyivna Banchenko
Yekaterina Kyivna Banchenko (Ukrainian: Екатери́на Київна Банченко, Yekaterina Kyivna Banchenko), also known as Katya, is the older cousin of both Ivan Braginsky and Natalia Arlovskaya. Personality If her little sister is the cold forests of Belarus with their blankets of snow, and her little brother is the duality between Siberian emptiness and crowded bustling cities, Katya is their grounding force, the southern breeze, the cozy summer dacha they can come home to and get fussed over and overfed and showered with sisterly affection. She is lively, affectionate and passionate, shown expressing a great deal more emotion than either sibling — in fact, she's quite high-strung and sensitive. Her brother describes her as having "a big heart" which often gets her into trouble because, as he explains, "she's often targeted because of it." She finds herself easily and frequently picked on, for anything and everything, from her parents' status, to the size of her bust, to the oddities of her siblings, to her crybaby nature. Despite this, she's too kind and caring to really hold much of a grudge, and this easily-trusting nature really just gets her into trouble again and again. "Crybaby," which is in fact the word Russia uses to describe her, is particularly apt. Hats dropping have more warning than Katya's tears, coming at any moment when she thinks she's slighted someone, or broken rules, or made someone upset or unhappy. She considers herself to be the sensible, level-headed sibling, which is true to an extent, but she's just as strange as her siblings — it's just a more normal kind of strange. That's not to say that she can't take care of herself. She's perfectly self-reliant, being left to care for two children barely younger than she is, and she's grown very used to cleaning up after Ivan's and Natalia's messes, apologizing to others for their... eccentricities — because as far as Katya is concerned, the two are just shy and misunderstood and she will hear nothing else of it — and scolding them soundly when they go out of line. She's not at all unwilling for this to extend past her family into others — in fact, the opposite. There's nothing at all wrong to her about stopping someone and scolding them for wearing such a thin coat in this weather, or adding a helping of vegetables onto the plate of the student next to her, or offer a sympathetic ear or a comforting hug to anyone who looks like they need it. No, she doesn't try to be overbearing or annoying, she is just genuinely worried for everyone. If you're not wearing a properly warm coat, she will find you and she will make you put one on. And then you will feel bad about making her worry. Everyone's big sister. Background The worst thing the daughter of a wealthy and prestigious Russian Wizarding family can do is get pregnant, out of wedlock, by a Ukrainian farmer. Kyi Banchenko's only saving graces in the eyes of the girl's parents were his pure bloodline and the fact that he immediately asked them for their daughter's hand in marriage. The shame was swept under the rug, the young woman's inheritance sizeably fractioned, and the two of them sent to live with the new father's parents on their farm in central Ukraine. Yekaterina was born, her name given a Russian spelling by her mother and a Ukrainian patronym by her father, and spent her first two years and four months a perfectly happy child. She delighted her parents by showing an early affection for plantlife and livestock, babbling with the chickens and sunflowers about either deep political controversy, or nonsense — her parents could never really tell. At the birth of her young cousin Ivan, the family travelled to Ireland to visit, and the two children instantly bonded, becoming nearly inseparable. It wasn't hard for the sight of Katya fussing over the state of Ivan's pillows to convince both sets of parents to let her stay in Ireland for a while — in the case of Ivan's parents, mostly out of indifference, seeing no significant change in their future other than possibly hiring another nanny for the additional baby, and Katya's parents returned home, completely assured their daughter would be well provided for. As it turned out, the Braginsky couple didn't need to to hire another maid, because Katya ended up taking on the role of "big sister." With the subsequent aquisition of Natalia, Katya devoted herself to her self-appointed duties: to keep her siblings safe, happy, and dearly loved. Barely out of her own infancy, she made sure to provide them each with all the love their parents never seemed to give them, and tried her hardest to protect Ivan from his father's wrath (and of course feeling hysterically guilty when Ivan went out of his way to protect her; it was a frequent switch, considering how easily picked-on the other children found her to be.) With the three of them together, it didn't really seem to matter all that much when they were teased — Natasha being small and silent, Vanya being large and shy, Katya a clumsy crybaby — because they were happy. Just a few years passed before Katya's parents sent for her to come back home, and while she found the distance from her siblings heart-breaking, Katya had missed her parents and was happy to be with them again. Eagerly they told her of a neighbour who'd moved not too far away, a Polish couple with a little boy; but rather than become friends with her, the boy chose to push her around, pull on her braids and declare her his lackey. When her parents announced a year later that they were moving to Ireland to be closer to her aunt and uncle, Katya was overjoyed. Tired of the political shenanigans in Ukraine, Katya's parents made the permanent move to the idyllic Irish countryside not terribly far from the Braginsky household (only to discover Irish political shenanigans.) Katya, devastatingly, had found her little siblings changed during their time apart — Ivan was colder somehow, Natalia even more so. Despite this, Katya chose to ignore it, trying hard to be a good sister and make them happy again before she got her Hogwarts letter. At school, though she missed her family very much, Katya found a joy she remembered from home: Herbology and magical creatures. The subjects came as naturally to her as crying, and while she did fairly well in most of her classes, she truly flourished in the greenhouses and stables. The only classes she did poorly in were the ones that frightened her: Defence Against the Dark Arts, often driving her to tears and causing others to tease her, only making her cry more; and Potions, which had terrified her since Ivan had experimented with a child's potion kit after Easter and it had blown up in Katya's face and crippled her for several months. Without her siblings to care for, Katya wound up taking the position of den mother for her year; as the oldest first year, it was barely questioned, and she's uncomplainingly followed this role for her entire time at Hogwarts. Though teased by other houses, which wasn't helped by the sudden and premature onset of puberty and the development of painfully large breasts, Katya hasn't had a great deal of worry — of course, Ivan's protection followed her whether she knew it or not. During the school year she wrote to Ivan and Natalia almost daily, until tragedy struck her parents' farm back home. A virus had spread through the livestock and their number shrivelled, and as a result Katya's parents had to borrow money from her significantly richer aunt. They've been slowly paying it off, but Katya has become a bit frightened of that branch of her extended family, occasionally going so far as to avoid Ivan if she thinks he's been reminded of her family's debt to his and might try to collect from her. In recent months, luckily for her and for poor Ivan who'd seemed so crushed at her distance, their parents have at least begun to work things out, and she's been hiding from him less and less. Relationships Ivan Braginsky TBA Natalia Arlovskaya TBA Others TBA Trivia *Her favourite classes are Herbology, Charms and Magical Creatures. *She has a Eurasian Pygmy owl named Evgeny, nicknamed Zhenya. *In her third year, after the development of certain assets, she tucked her pet chick down her blouse and smuggled it onto the Hogwarts train, raising it on the grounds; she named the chicken Nadezhda, also Nastya, and often spends time talking to her when she's homesick. *Her Patronus is (/will be? Maybe she hasn't cast the charm yet) a young heifer. Don't knock it. *Her Boggart alternates between a grown Ivan approaching her with a bucket of an unknown potion, or her parents and siblings mocking her and telling her they don't need her anymore. *She treats house-elves with a bizarre sort of respect and kindness; the reason for this is that she is used to the domovik of her homeland which are much more mischievous and fickle than their British counterparts. As a habit, she leaves a bowl of milk and a slice of bread on her windowsill, probably baffling the house-elves. *However much she loves Quiddich, she is entirely incapable of flying a broomstick, or riding along. She's too top-heavy, and she just flips right over. **This is how she broke her collarbone in 2nd year. *Her dream career is as the owner of a small magical flower shop.